Gadgetory

welcome back to hard brown box today's video is something that I've been wanting to cover for a little while now but unfortunately haven't really been able to get around to it sooner you can blame the holiday period and CES for that one anyway last year intel unveiled a new series of you series laptop processors designed for ultra portables and I use the term new quite loosely here these CPUs are codenamed whiskey Lake and there's still eight generation parts in fact they're not radically different from KB like refresh that came before it the main change is the move from Intel's 14 nanometer plus to their 14 nanometer plus plus process node which has allowed slightly higher clock speeds within the same power envelope the basic design of these CPUs is unchanged from the previous generation which is probably why they're still being called 8th gen parts rather than ninth gen to fit in with intel's current desktop lineup there are also only three SKUs the core i7 85/60 5u and core i5 80 265 you are both for core 8 threads CPUs while the core i3 81 45 U is a dual core part with four threads all are 15 watt parts although the TDP can be configured anywhere from 10 watts to 25 Watts depending on what the OEM wants the focus of this video is the core i7 85 65 u which is essentially the new flagship 15 watt CPU in Intel's lineup this is a little confusing as previously there was a core i7 8650 you but the 85 65 u is actually clocked higher at a single core turbo clock of 4.6 gigahertz up from 4.2 gigahertz and all core turbo of 4.1 gigahertz up from 3.9 gigahertz the base clock is a little lower though at 1.8 gigahertz compared to 1.9 gigahertz and these clock speed increases are even more favorable when comparing the ice of an 85 65 view to the eye 78550 U which is more life for like in a comparison going on the naming scheme comparing those two CPUs gives at least an 11% boost clock advantage to whisky Lake it seems that a lot of OMS weren't super excited by whisky Lake unlike cable a refresh that came before because we didn't see a lot of laptop refreshes in 2018 that decided to use these new parts it's only now in 2019 at CES that more vendors are jumping on board and I suspect that it's due to relatively modest clock speed increases making it not as much of an urgent or necessary upgrade so in preparation for these 2019 releases I'm going to be detailing how whiskey lake specifically the core i7 85/60 5u performs in comparison to a range of other laptop class processes this should give you a good idea of how the CPU stacks up would be a perfect reflection because laptop vendors can change you know a number of different aspects including the cooler memory configuration and tvp's which all impact performance boy I'll be showing today should be I guess very close to what you'll see in most laptop implementations crucially I've tested the core i7 85 65 you using the new Razer Blade stealth which is an excellent test platform for a number of reasons firstly this laptop uses the 25 watt maximum TDP configuration for the CPU so we'll see how this chip performs in devices that choose this configuration and have larger coolers Dell for example tends to use 25 watts for their XPS line then using intel's extreme tuning utility i've also been able to set the cpu down to its regular 15 watt configuration this is the most common configuration and reflects the majority of laptops that will use this CPU having both sets of data should give a pretty comprehensive look at how this processor performs the blade self is also a good platform because it includes 16 gigabytes of dual channel memory again that's a common configuration and dual channel is key because the best performing laptops have dual channel memory on top of this the laptop also has discreet nvidia geforce MX 150 graphics over this benchmark video the MX 150 has been disabled for all testing a razorblade star review will be up in a few days and that will cover the actual performance of this laptop with its discrete GPU enables a few other things about whiskey like to mention before we get into the benchmarks and those beautiful blue charts you will love firstly the GPU and cache configuration are unchanged compared to cable ache refresh so while still looking at a UHD 620 GPU at up to eleven fifty megahertz in the core i7 eighty 565 you own with 8 megabytes of level for a cache typical pl2 power limits also appear to be unchanged so we're still looking at short bursts up to 44 watts with the 15 watt configuration and 51 watts with the 25 watt configuration although of course laptop OMS can and do change these metrics quite a lot depending on the models that they're producing alright let's take a look at performance starting with Cinebench r15 a favorite of everyone reviewing a cpu for the past how many years now and the multi-threaded test is a relatively short benchmark but it has a decent mix of both boost and steady-state clock speed behavior despite higher boost clocks the 80 565 you in its 15 what configuration ends up only 3% faster than the 85 50 you in the multi-threaded test the 25 watt configuration okay it's a healthy 11 percent boost which is in line with the boost clock difference both configs are a fair bit faster in the single threaded test here though to explain what's going on it's worth looking at a clock speed comparison during a Cinebench run both the 15 watt and 25 watt configurations start off at their maximum all core turbo clock speed which is 3.7 gigahertz for the 8550 you and 4.1 gigahertz to the 85 65 you however when the CPU reverts to its pl/1 state so it's no longer boosting anymore there's quite a difference in behavior the 25 watt 8550 you is sitting around the 2.6 to 2.7 gigahertz mark however the 25 watt 85 65 you is up at 3.1 gigahertz so that's a quite healthy gain for the 85 65 you and contributes to the larger gain in performance when looking at the 15 watt CPUs the 85 50 you sits at 2.2 to 2.3 gigahertz compared to 2.3 to 2.4 gigahertz for the a5 65 you there is a gain for the 85 65 you but it's not as large as you get at 25 watts what's apparent here is that the advantage is that 40 nanometers plus plus brings to whiskey Lake aren't all that accessible with a tiny 15 watt power limit sure you do get a decent jump in boost clock speeds but when the CPU averts to its long-term pale 1 power state there's not a lot to be gained from the 85 65 you however at 25 Watts the taps are opened a bit more on whiskey Lake can stretch its legs to provide a decent jump in performance looking at the Cinebench r15 performance again it's also quite impressive to see where the 25-watt configuration is sitting among the pack the 25 watt 85 65 u is almost as fast as the core i7 7700 HQ in the multi-threaded test and it smokes it in the single thread test the 7700 HQ is a 45 watt quad core designed for gaming laptops so it's great to see that performance now available in ultra portable form factors we see a similar situation in x264 encoding the 25 watt 85 65 u is right up there with the 7700 HQ while the 15 watt configuration is providing up to an 8 percent gain over the 85 50 you handbrake x265 was a really interesting benchmark to run as it shows an even harsher reality for the 15 what configuration of these CPUs with this TDP limit there was no difference in performance between 85 50 you and 85 65 you likely due to the use of AVX instructions the further limit what low-power CPS can chief however with the 25 watt configurations the 85 65 you is a good 17 percent faster which is slightly above the difference in long term clock speeds we also see that while the 85 65 you was close to the 7700 HQ in previous tests when a V X is required the 7700 HQ and other 45 watt CPUs begin to pull away Adobe premier benefits strongly from GPU acceleration and I GPU in these 15 watt CPUs is pretty weak you can see that the top 3 CPUs that are paired with discrete class graphics smoke the competition here we also see the 15 watt 85 65 you fall slightly behind the 85 50 you a strange result and the only benchmark where this was the case that said the 25 watt configuration is now for 10% faster Microsoft Excel is a workload that runs entirely within the PL to boost States so there is no difference in performance between the 25 watt and 15 watt configurations the i7 85 65 you holds a small advantage over the 85 50 you and both sit around the same mark as the 7700 HQ another impressive showing MATLAB is another good result for the 85 65 you with an 8% game present with the 15 watt configuration over the 85 50 you while the 25 watt config jumps up to a 14% gain again in this short burst single core workload there's not a lot of difference between most of intel's recent cpus and considering it also thrives on memory bandwidth where there has been virtually no improvement we're left with a big clumping at the top of the chart 7-zip is another benchmark where we see small general gen improvements with whiskey lake mostly because again this test is short and runs in the boost clock zone not a lot more to say here so let's move on Adobe Photoshop shows some of the largest gains between generations with the 15 watt skew delivering 13% more performance and the 25 watt skews showing gains of 26% much higher than the average a very strong showing for whiskey Lake here it's also worth looking at PCU mark 10 here where again we see decent generational gains between age cpu the 15 watt SKU provides 12% more performance which is in line with some of the single threaded short burst workloads we've seen and that's largely what PC mark tests I want to briefly touch on GPU performance as well though there's not a lot to say here considering there hasn't been any change to the GPU and whiskey lake compared to K be like refresh big gains are expected for the next generation but we're not getting anything here looking across our 3d mark workloads like sky diver most of the games you're seeing are from higher CPU scores when looking at purely GPU scores there is next to no improvement also in more GPU intensive workloads whiskey leg still gets handily beaten by AMD's rise in mobile processes it's now time to look through some overall summaries of how the cryo 780 565 view performs on average the 15-watt configuration of the 85 65 u is 8 percent faster than the 85 50 years though these games largely appear in either single threaded workloads short workloads or some combination of the two in longer workloads like video encoding you can expect less than a 5 percent performance improvement when comparing the 25 watt configurations the gains are more significant here up to a 15 percent improvement on average with quite a healthy gain in longer workloads this is more in line with the clock speed differences between the two processes data 565 u is simply clocked higher so you can expect it to perform better especially with a higher power limit the 25 watt core i7 85 65 u is also now delivering performance in line with the 45 what core i7 7700 HQ in some workloads dat 565 you is less than 1% behind on average this means that in the space of roughly two years Intel has been able to take gaming laptop level CPU performance and put that into ultra portable types a C's sure you need to use the upper end 25 watt configuration to achieve this but it's impressive considering all the hate Intel does get for its 14 nanometer plus plus process Tech and then when comparing the 15 watt 85 65 you to even just the core i7 7500 year from a few years ago it's pretty much an on contest with double the core and thread count the 85 65 u is on average 35% faster and that margin only increases when looking strictly at multi-core workloads if you're coming from a dual-core ultra portable to a quad-core whiskey like system expect to see significant performance improvements across all workloads either from the doubling of cores or from the large clock speed gains so overall I think there's a couple of ways to look at what whiskey lake is bringing to the table on the one hand there's not a lot to be gained in its 15 watt configuration we're looking at single-digit improvements for the most part and sometimes for longer workloads no improvements compared to K be like refresh Intel's 40 nanometer node is clearly limiting them from achieving larger gains the shift of 40 nanometer + + I guess can only do so much the best you'll get from whiskey lake is in the 25 watt configuration where performance improvements tend to match the clock speed gains more closely at around a 15 percent improvement however it's rare to find a 25 watt system the 15 watt config is much more common so for the majority of buyers looking at a whiskey lake system there's not a lot of incentive to upgrade from KB like refresh or to buy a whiskey lake system if it costs more than a last gen KB like machine however on the other hand it's hard not to be impressed with what Intel has achieved over the last few years without significant advances to process technology short on the desktop 40 nanometer + + + + + I guess is now a bit of a joke and performance gains in your outside of increased core counts are anywhere from unimpressive to non-existent but on the mobile side within the same sort of ultra portable laptop designs we've gone from - cause Motors clock speeds to fall cause at reasonably high clock speeds are largely the same process note in architecture performance that used to be restricted to gaming laptops is now accessible in more portable form factors which is certainly very impressive and while a whiskey lake isn't a huge step over KB like refresh it will be a massive improvement to anyone upgrading from a dual-core seventh gen system or earlier typical laptop upgrade cycles are quite long if you're using a four-year old laptop for example you can expect huge improvements upgrading to something 8th gen that said I'd still shop around because you don't necessarily need whiskey Lake to access those gains KB like R is also fine there is still one lingering issue with intel's mobile processors and that's the GPU side with basically zero improvements in this department for generations now Intel a lagging way behind what is required for a modern ultra portable AMD has realised this as their beefy Vega GPU in their riser mobile ap use handily crush Intel integrated graphics lots of OEMs have also realized and are starting to pay invidious MX 150 discrete GPU with Intel's 15 watt CPUs to get that extra GPU performance it does seem like whiskey Lake is a bit of a stopgap until Intel can get their 10 nanometer CPUs out of the door at the end of 2019 which will bring a much larger and more competitive gen 11 integrated GPU with only 5 to 15 percent performance gains on the CPU side as well it's really all Intel could do at this point and OEMs weren't exactly rushing out risky like systems and I think that is a reflection of this overall situation at Intel spying themselves in anyway that's it for this look at whiskey lake performance with the crisis of an 85 65 you story to those who are waiting for us to cover this new laptop cpus has been out for I guess a little while now we'll also be back in a few days to fully check out the new race of weight still so stay tuned for that as always you can subscribe for more content consider supporting us on patreon to get access to our awesome discord community and I'll catch you in the next one